


Red Riding Hood.

by TheLostSilence



Category: Servamp
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, Disease, Fluff and Angst, Gods, Hanahaki Disease, KuroMahi, M/M, Not really though, One-Sided-Love, Red Riding Hood - Freeform, Sad, Self-Denial, Self-Harm, Servamp - Freeform, dead, just kuro denying his own feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-06-22 17:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15586665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLostSilence/pseuds/TheLostSilence
Summary: The heartbeat monitor stopped beating,as his partner's heartbeat on the monitor went into a flat line, as well as his breathing. The male’s grip on his partner's slumped and cold lifeless hand,tightened as he allowed the tears to drop like a waterfall."MAHIRU!"-/-A young brunette boy suddenly fell into an open field full of green grass,littered and filled with beautiful flowers and trees surrounding him, caging him in.He felt a sudden yet light punch at his head,and went to touch what caused it.Instead,he felt nothing but fur.His eyes widened in slight horror as his eyes trailed down to what was laying peacefully beside him.A tail.Which meant...A werewolf.He was a werewolf.He hoped that the Gods that ‘helped’ him, were laughing their asses off right now at his stupidity of trusting them.-/-Or in which Mahiru dies of the Hanahaki disease but gets ‘reincarnated’ into the werewolf of the Red Riding Hood story,and one day,he meets his true and final Red Riding Hood he had waited for oh so long.But why was this Red Riding Hood so muscular and tall, and even looked very handsome with his sky-blue hair and crimson eyes?Not fair.





	1. Chapter 1

Mahiru..died.

He died of the disease called the 'Hanahaki' disease,which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from a one-sided love.

It ends when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only; strong friendship is not enough), or when the victim dies.

It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim's romantic feelings for their love also disappear.

And who did Mahiru love?

Kuro.

Kuro always said that mutual love between a Human and an immortal Vampire would never happen,and the vampire could never reciprocate the human's feelings,so Mahiru didn't tell him.

He refused surgical removal,which made him suffer, but he didn't tell anyone,and so,it resulted into his demise.

Kuro grieved,regretting telling him that,and he regretted his actions of going against his own feelings that he actually loved Mahiru,because he believed that it would never work out.

And that was when the Gods took notice of their situations.

They became interested,and told Mahiru's soul that he had a chance to become 'Alive' again.

To be alive,in the form of a dream.

This 'gift',or 'curse',would draw people to his dream, where he would take the form of the Wolf in the story of Red Riding Hood,and the people drawn would become the 'Red Riding Hood'.

The people,or 'Red Riding Hood',could either be a male or a female, as it was random on who might be drawn in.

When they're drawn in,their bodies would sleep, and only the soul was conscious in that dream,so they would only wake up in real life if they managed to get out of the dream..

..Or if they reciprocated Mahiru's feelings of love.

And if that actually happened,Mahiru would be beside them when they wake up (results vary),resulting in a 'Happily Ever After' for the two.

He had a chance that if people reciprocated feelings of love for him,he would be broken out of that curse, and he could come back alive again.

But if things didn't really work out,he and Red Riding Hood could just follow the original story where the Wolf dies,Red Riding Hood gets saved, and the person would wake up again in reality.

Once Mahiru heard that,he jumped on that offer.

However,he was sad that he couldn't love Kuro once he loved that person who came into,or got drawn into that dream;nonetheless,it was still a chance to be alive once again.

But it didn't matter,as the Gods removed his memories of his past before he died when he was 'revived' in the form of the wolf in the Red Riding Hood story,including his own name.

And also,the Gods have placed a spell on him that makes it so that he has a hood on him that covered his hair and his Eyes the whole time.

This is so that if Red Riding Hood and The Wolf reciprocates a little of their feelings towards each other,his hood would come off,revealing how he looks like.

Mahiru forgets his own name and how he looks like over the years of waiting for the true one,only remembering that the Kanji of his name reflects one of 'Shiro',which means white.

And that he was dead,so he sometimes likes to call himself as 'Shi',short form of 'Shinda' which means 'Dead' in Japanese.

Oh,he sometimes goes with the name of 'Shiro' too if he was in a good mood,so he has two names for himself.

One being 'Shi',and the other of 'Shiro'.

He also sometimes adds the 'N' to 'Shi',so he sometimes pronounces it as 'Shin'.

He only knows that the Kanji of his name reflects the word of 'Shiro',contrasting the colour of black, which was 'Kuro',and that he had brown wolf ears protruding from his head,and a brown tail.

It doesn't seem all bad,with him following the original story if he didn't go well with that person, which was all of the Red Riding Hoods he has ever had..

..Until a taller and muscular Red Riding Hood that seemed older than him with Azure-Hair, Crimson Red Eyes that had panda bags,unexpectedly popped up in his dreamland.

-/-

"Why is Red Riding Hood taller and muscular than the Wolf this time?!"

"Beats me,don't involve me in this troublesome mess you've brought on yourself."

"You don't have a right to speak here,Red Riding Hood!"

"What a pain..That name really sucks,you know, Shi?"

"You don't get to decide here!Now get out of this dream world and let me receive another new Red Riding Hood!"

"You have guts to say that in front of the actual Red Riding Hood here.. Even though I know that I am just one of the many that you've received and will still receive."

"Glad to know that you know the facts!Now get out!"

"If it was that easy,I would've done that a long time ago to get away from you,since you're so noisy and troublesome,like him..But I guess it's nice living in a Wonderland world for awhile.."

"SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF THIS DREAMLAND-LIKE-WORLD,WOULD YOU?!"

"Ah ah..so noisy for a small and immature wolf like you..Can't deal.. And wait,why is the wolf here so small and short? Isn't the Wolf supposed to be mightier than Red Riding Hood?"

"SHUT UP ALREADY AND STOP JUDGING ME ON MY HEIGHT! I'M ACTUALLY STRONGER THAN YOU!"

"Yeah yeah..I seriously believe in that..Self-Proclaimed-stuff.."

"SHUT UP ALREADY!I CAN SENSE YOUR SARCASM FROM A MILE AWAY!AGH,YOU'RE SO IRRITATING AND TROUBLESOME!"

"Even I know that for myself,y'know.."

"JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!"

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first official chapter!
> 
> Yay!
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments section below! ^^

"LET ME SEE HIM!"

"S-Sir..!Please wait..!He's in dire need of help and in a hospital room being monitored by doctors, so you can't enter right now! Please sir,please just wait for awhile-!"

"I DON'T FREAKING CARE!LET ME THROUGH! I HAVE TO SEE HIM!"

"S-Security..!"

A man with Azure hair and a coat that went well with his hair colour ran through the sea of people, pushing people away left and right as he rushed towards the room his partner laid.

He ignored the people running after him, screaming stuff that seemed like utter rubbish to him,like 'Stop Him!' and Etc.

He finally reached the room where his partner that had been in horrible pain for the past few months laid in,horrible pain that he never noticed at all.

He hated himself for that.

He slammed the door open,and the nurses and doctors inside were flabbergasted,and they almost dropped all of the items they were holding.

"Why is someone here?!" A doctor demanded for answers, as the people started mumbling to themselves.

The Azure-Haired male's Crimson Red eyes widened in shock at the sight of his male partner, having tubes stuck into him,and a mask on for oxygen.

His eyes darted to the heartbeat monitor on the side, and he was shocked to see how weak the beats and pulses were on the screen.

His partner groaned in pain,as he opened his eyes slowly, but he didn't have enough energy or power to open them fully,so they were only half-lidded.

His partner's eyes widened at the sight of the Azure-Haired male being there, as tears prickled at the corners of his brown eyes,and streamed down to his cheeks.

He outstretched a hand to him,but the movements were sloppy and it was obvious that he was deprived of energy or power.

The Azure-Haired male immediately knew that he had to stop idling about,as his partner's life was already in danger,and rushed to him,as he entwined their hands and fingers.

His partner flinched at the contact,but welcomed it nonetheless.

The Azure-Haired male brought the pale and cold hand to his own cheek that was already streaming down tears of sadness,"Why..Why didn't you tell me..?!"

He saw that beneath that invisible oxygen mask of his, his partner frowned sadly,as he mumbled out,"I'm sorry.. I really a-am.."

"You troublesome idiot!If you had just told me about your pain,I could've done something about it..!" The Azure-Haired male cried,as the doctors watched in pity.

The Azure-Haired male swiftly turned his head to he doctors and demanded,"Is there a way or something that you can do that can save him?!" 

A doctor stepped up and bowed her head in pity,"I apologise, Sir..However,he had refused Surgery, so we couldn't get the roots out from his lungs.. He's also in the final stages,so.."

"So you can't save him?!" The Azure-Haired male finished the doctor's sentence,and the doctor nodded in sadness as she held her head low.

"Y-You heard her.." A feeble voice was heard from his partner, as the Azure-Haired male turned his head to him.

"I'm going t-to die..W-we all know the outcome and e-ending already,r-right..?S-So please.."

"STOP TALKING LIKE THAT!" The Azure-Haired male snapped in frustration and sadness as he raised his voice, making his partner flinch,but he shook his head.

The azure-haired male cried,"Why..W-Why didn't you tell m-me..?"

His partner smiled sadly,"Y-You always said that love b-between a Vampire and a Human is i-impossible, so I didn't want to trouble you..It's the simplest choice,r-right..?"

"THAT'S JUST BECAUSE OF YOUR TROUBLESOME PERSONALITY!" The azure-haired male raised his voice again,but his eyes widened at the beep of the heartbeat monitor.

His eyes darted towards it,so did the doctors, and he was shocked that it was getting slower and weaker with each passing second.

He looked at his partner again with his crimson eyes, to see his partner smiling weakly at him beneath that oxygen mask.

"Hey..L-Live on f-for me,alright..? Find yourself a better Eve,okay? I-If you were to s-suddenly die because of y-your sadness of my d-death,I won't ever f-forgive you.." His partner said.

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING LIKE THAT AS IF YOU ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE?!" The azure-haired male snapped,but felt a warm touch go to his cheek.

He looked at his cheek,to see another hand of his partner caressing it gently, as he heard the heartbeat monitor that was monitoring his heartbeat go softer.

"Please,Kuro..Please,live a happier l-life,okay? C'mon, smile for me..F-For my sake.." 

His crimson red eyes widened as both of the hands that belonged to his partner slump,motionless, and pulse go silent.

The heartbeat monitor stopped beating,as his partner's heartbeat on the monitor went into a flat line, as well as his breathing.

His grip on his partner's slumped and cold lifeless hand tightened as he allowed the tears to drop even more like a waterfall.

"MAHIRU!"

-/-

  Mahiru woke up in a cold sweat as he sat up straight the instant he woke up from that..dream.

  He recounted his dream,what happened,how he felt, how sad and excruciatingly painful it was, and the most part, was that he was dying and that he was in a hospital.

  No wait.

  He already died in that dream.

  He sighed sadly at himself,as he felt tears of sadness prickle at the corners of his eyes,but he wiped them away, deeming that those tears were useless to shed.

  He sighed once again and mumbled to himself,"Ugh.. Is it me,or was that not a dream,but a vision of some sort..? God has already decided my fate, huh..?"

  He knew it.

  He was dying.

  He had the disease that was once deemed as fictional in many books,but suddenly became true in many regions of the country,and maybe in other parts of the world.

  That disease was called the 'Hanahaki' disease.

  It is a disease where the victims suffers from 'One-Sided-Love', and when they know that it's one-sided, they start to cough up flower petals, and when it's getting dire, they start to cough up full flowers.

  The disease was excruciatingly painful,as it would penetrate their lungs and when they cough the petals or flowers up,it's usually accompanied with blood.

  There are two ways to cure this disease.

  First off,is the very obvious way and one of the reasons why the victim is suffering it,and it's to get the beloved to reciprocate their feelings of love to the victim too.

  The second,is quite sad to be perfectly frank or honest with you.

  It's by Surgical Removal.

  The victim would undergo surgery to get the petals or the roots out and then,the victim would be perfectly fine, as if nothing happened.

  But it comes with a price.

  The victim,would either lose his or her feelings towards the beloved, or even lose the ability to even love, or even the memories of that person at all.

  Because of the price,most people or victims of this disease would refuse the second option, going with the gamble and risks of getting the beloved to love them back,or they'd die completely.

  And who did Mahiru love unconditionally?

  Kuro.

  He loved Kuro.

  Kuro had always protected him no matter what with all of his strength and will,even though he usually complained,but Mahiru respected him for that.

  But that respect eventually turned to admiration, and then to love.

  He started to notice the most littlest things about Kuro's appearance and his personality, with his cat-like traits.

  He noticed that Kuro always loved to take up the whole couch,but always left some space for Mahiru to sit, and that was nice of him.

  He'd sometimes volunteer to help Mahiru with the house chores and stuff, just to not be useless to him, even though Mahiru always said that he isn't useless.

  He also noticed a funny thing about him that whenever Kuro was flustered about something he said or did to him,he would always transform into a cat and say his usual catchphrase of 'What a pain'.

  And then,he started to notice his looks and appearances.

  He loved Kuro's azure hair,it was as blue and azure as the beautiful and vast sky,and his blue coat accompanied his hair well.

  His Crimson red eyes were somewhat mystical to him, and they seemed to draw,lure and enchant him to the point that if he stared too long into them, he'd start daydreaming.

  His skin was too pale to be a human's,because he didn't receive much melanin for the skin, and that was because if he even dared to step out into the sun, he'd transform back into his cat form.

  He loved Kuro so much that he noticed so many things that Kuro himself might've not known, and those things were the littlest of them all.

  He loved him,and he cherished him for being there for when he needs him.

  Kuro had somewhat sparked a light in Mahiru's previously dull life, that was devoid of many emotions.

  Once his parents died,he barely showed any emotions, and he'd even fake his own emotions just to appear 'normal' to someone.

  And that was when Kuro came into his life.

  He sparked a light into his previously dull and colourless life, and he was always there for him, even when it wasn't really needed.

  Whether that was because of the contract or their actual friendship, he didn't care.

  Kuro was always there for him.

  He always wished he could just engulf him into a tight hug and scream to the whole world on how much he loved him, and to watch his expressions.

  But,he knew that was never possible because he always heard Kuro say the same exact thing when Mahiru mentions the topic of love between a Vampire and a Human:

  "That's impossible. A normal human and an Immortal vampire would never be able to have a mutual relationship."

"The vampire's immortal, so it could never reciprocate the mortal human's feelings."

  Every time Kuro said that,Mahiru felt his chest tighten with heartache and maybe something else, but he always shrugged it off and went along with Kuro's words.

  He remembered the day when he had discovered he had the rare condition or disease that was once thought to be completely fictional, and it started a few months back.

  Yeah.

  He had been suffering this disease for a few months, and he was surprised on how long he was able to persevere or endure through the pain and not die yet.

-/-

A few months back:

-/-

  "Another errand from the housewife himself? How troublesome.. Isn't that the second errand you have given me this week..?"

  "IT'S ONLY THE SECOND!BE THANKFUL THAT I  DIDN'T GIVE YOU AN ERRAND EVERYDAY!" Mahiru raised his voice.

But he couldn't really bring himself to get angry at him,and he chuckled at the end.

  "I guess you could say that I am grateful for that.. Usually,most asian mothers or wives would make the children go out doing errands everyday.." Kuro sighed,as he got up from the couch.

  Mahiru realised it and replied back,"Are you calling me a mother?!"

  "Technically,yes..I mean,if you're a Housewife, then it wouldn't be so out of point to say that you could become a mother.."

  "I'M NOT A GIRL!" Mahiru chided him,but Kuro shrugged in response at that scolding.

  "Anyways..The usual troublesome items,right..?" Kuro asked, and Mahiru nodded.

  Kuro yawned and stretched as he opened the door and left while waving back,"Then I'll be back..I've got the money already,so just sit tight,housewife.."

  "STOP CALLING ME A HOUSEWIFE!" Mahiru shouted back at him, but by that time, the door had already closed, and Kuro left.

  "Geez that guy..He's going to be the death of me someday.." He ruffled his hair jokingly as he chuckled, not knowing that was he just said was the actual real thing.

  "Now,back to finishing the chores-"

  He suddenly felt acute and excruciating pain swell up in his chest and the urge to cough, as he fell to his knees.

  He covered his mouth immediately as he scrambled his feet towards the bathroom's door hastily.

He grabbed ahold of the toilet's bowl as he suddenly coughed out a liquid substance, accompanied by something hard.

  Once that was done, he cleared out the excessive liquid that were at the corners of his mouth, and sighed deeply at himself.

  "What the hell was that even..?" Mahiru asked himself as he casually brought his hand that he used to wipe his mouth up to his eyes, where they widened at the sight.

  And boy,was this the start of the hellish nightmare.

  "Blood and..petals of a flower..?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty.First chapter,done.Took quite a while because I’ve basically forgotten about this and continued to read other fanfictions.. 
> 
> :P
> 
> Anyways,please let me know what you think of this! Angst galore because I’m so cruel!
> 
> ^^


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuro hears the news that he dreaded for so long.

-/-

A few moments ago,with Kuro.

-/-

Kuro yawned as he glanced at all of the food on the shelves boringly,with his usual uncaring face plastered on,but behind that façade,was a seriously troubled and worried Servamp.

Mahiru had been acting too weird for his liking; he always barely ate,didn't order him around that much and with his housewife personality being replaced by a really quiet one.

When he did eat,he would always not finish the food on his own plate that he cooked for the two of them, and just threw away the food that he hadn't finished.

Even if Kuro wouldn't admit this openly,he was really scared and worried for Mahiru.

He was his light,his sole reason of living in this colourless, boring and mundane world,and without him, Kuro would've continued to run away from his problems and suffer later on.

  He first thought that Mahiru was just a troublesome brat that always placed himself into trouble and tried to act like a hero to everyone,just to receive recognition.

  But he soon realised that his assumption was wrong.

  Mahiru truly wanted to help people,and not just for the recognition a hero receives.

  When he had learnt that Mahiru's parents died in a car-crash and only has an uncle to support him, but barely comes home,he thought that the boy was just a pitiful cliche character.

  He was nobody special;hell,he wondered if he ever became suicidal with how predictable the plots for stories go.

  He said that he liked to keep things simple and just help out somebody in need,when really,it would just make matters worse and more complicated than it already is.

  Kuro thought that he was superior than him because he knew how things would turn out,and thought that he was smarter than him.

  Because he chose the reasonable decision of not wanting to fight and involve himself into that troublesome mess.

  But he saw that Mahiru wanted to help people because he had already went through his own series of traumatic problems and that he didn't want the rest to experience it.

  Kuro somehow respected him for that.

To not want people to experience the bad things you have already went through,and so,you help them overcome it.

He was extremely grateful that he existed in his life, and he was the first Eve he had that treated him like an equal,and he was happy,for once.

He knew that his happiness would soon end,as human lives were short and had an expiry date,so he always tried to live in the present and tried not to think of the future that much.

But when he realised that he always tried to live in the present and started looking forward to the day after that,did he realise something:

He was not actually just looking forward to the present, like how he told himself,he was also looking forward to the future and hoping that it'll continue for forever.

And when he tried to find out why he always looked forward to the next day and wished that it would continue forever,he concluded something.

And he hated his conclusion:

He was in love with Mahiru.

Once he concluded that,he felt a heavy weight being lifted off his shoulders and a big dilemma being finally solved after these months.

But there was a problem about his conclusion,and the problem was..

That he was in love with a human with an expiry date,Mahiru.

He seriously wanted to smack and kill himself right there when he had concluded that,and what was worse, was that his demon with it's mouth and eyes stitched up,gave him a suggestion.

He had appeared right next to Kuro when he was alone in Mahiru's room,and told him these exact same words:

"You love Mahiru?That's a sin to do y'know, Kuro? And you want to continue seeing him forever? Then..how about turning him into your subclass?"

"Then,you'll be able to see him forever."

To be honest,he actually considered his demon's words, about turning Mahiru into his very first subclass so that he could see him forever.

  But once he did considered that option and suggestion given to him by his demon,he wanted to kill himself.

He didn't want to drag Mahiru down into this hellish nightmare,of being immortal and seeing your friends die faster than you.

  Nope,he didn't want to do that at all.

He wanted him to have a normal,simple and average human life,where he had a family and Kuro would just watch from afar,watching him grow up.

He did not want to taint him.

But was seeing Mahiru getting stolen away by another human girl,seeing him grow up,and making him watch from a distance,really what he wanted?

The answer was no.

He did not want that kind of future at all.

He didn't want to see Mahiru grow up and show signs of old age,he did not want to see Mahiru get stolen away from his grasp and reach,and he did not want Mahiru to forget about him.

He was selfish,and he only wanted Mahiru for himself.

But oh,he knew that that was a sin to do.

To steal Mahiru's future from him just because you loved him,and to isolate him from the human world by turning him into your subclass just like a cliche Yandere.

  To steal the light away from others and blinding them in total darkness,just for your greedy and selfish self.

But what if the brunet also had some feelings of love towards him,and reciprocated his feelings too?

No,that was a far-fetched dream that he'll never ever reach.

So,once he knew his true feelings for the brunet boy, he tried to distance himself from him,and tried to forget his own feelings.

He was running away from his problems again and not facing them head on,like how Mahiru had advised him to do.

But one day,he started to notice changes about Mahiru,like how he started to get a bit more closer and a bit more affectionate towards him,as if something clicked in him.

He thought with some hope in his eyes that Mahiru also loved him back,but he always shrugged it off, thinking for himself that this was just the troublesome's brunet personality.

But in the inside,he really hoped that he did in fact loved him back.

However,he knew that if he ever tried to become closer to the boy,he'll surely become more attached to him,to the point that he'll reconsider the suggestion of turning him into a subclass.

  He feared when that stage would come.

So that was why he continued to distance himself from the boy,to distance the shadow from it's own very light that helped it continue to live and exist.

He hated the borderline between them,and the border was his immortality versus Mahiru's mortality and expiry date.

He wished that if he was just born into another alternate universe where he was just an ordinary human being,he would become a couple with Mahiru and eventually marry him.

  He truly wanted to,but he couldn't.

  And one day,Mahiru started to talk about gibberish stuff, and asked him a sensitive question:

  "Hey,Kuro..Do you think that love between a human and an immortal vampire is possible?"

  And Kuro,who was shocked beyond belief at that sudden sensitive question,just answered him like how he usually did,even though his tone had a bit of anger in it.

  And no,it wasn't directed to Mahiru,and he was sure that Mahiru picked it up that it wasn't directed towards him,he hoped so anyways.

He was actually angry about the fact that he just denied his own feelings.

  Hell,he even had a chance to confess right there, but his morals and crap just got in the way and prevented him from doing so!

  He just spouted whatever came to his mind and the words just rolled off his tongue,word after word, and he was quite sure,that for one second,he saw Mahiru's face contort into shock.

  And pain or heartache.

  He told him that it was entirely impossible,that love between an immortal vampire and a human with an expiry date wouldn't work out,because the vampire was immortal while the human wasn't.

  He didn't even believe in the words that were rolling off his tongue.

  He didn't believe that he was actually saying these words. 

  He hated himself and hated the fact that he was denying his true feelings and himself entirely,while the demon of his kept snickering the whole entire damn time.

But still,because he was seriously foolish,he decided to keep up with the act and continue to go with what he said,along the lines of 'No,it's entirely impossible' and such.

And then,a few days or weeks after that,that was when he noticed the flower growing on his palm.

  The flower was the flower named the 'Striped Carnation', and in the flower language,its meaning is of a very harmful or harsh variety or genre.

  The meaning went along with the lines of 'No; Refusal; Sorry,I can't be with you;I wished that I could've been with you'.

  Now,do not take Kuro as a dumbass that, regardless of his lazy-ass personality,wouldn't at least try to learn anything at all over the millenniums he's lived for.

  He has a least a small library of knowledge from being immortal and the millenniums he's lived for and he could probably pass and get into Harvard, okay?

  He wasn't dumb.

  Hell,he came from some foreign and western country that wasn't Japan,so how would he have known to speak the language without a couple of years of learning it at all?

  Back in the old days Kuro was slightly familiar with, when things were calm and without any missiles and without crazy dictators that want to claim the world for himself..

  ..And the man that Kuro had just described of what definitely not Hitler..

  Yeah,back in those days without those crazy dictators, there wasn't technology around to waste your time on,and so,Kuro had to relieve his boredom by studying.

  But won't that just add on to his boredom?

  Well whatever,every person is different,okay?

  We evolve.  
   
  Or in Kuro's case as he turned his habits of studying when bored to playing games all day on his console, or Mahiru's console actually:

  We devolve.

  When he had remembered what the Striped Carnation meant in the flower language,he immediately realised that the flower suited his predicament well.

  He was currently in self-denial;he refused his own feelings of love towards Mahiru,yet he wanted to love him and have him reciprocate his feelings at the same time.

  He wished that he could be with him and love him until the very end,but he couldn't,because he was immortal.

  But the thing was,he still did not understand why the hell was a flower actually growing on his palm and if that was even theoretically possible,but it was because it was happening to him.

  And so,he decided to go back to the apartment and search it up on Google,but there was still an obstacle in the way from the search engine:

  Mahiru himself.

  He didn't want to really trouble,confuse and make him panic that a flower was growing on his palm, and that was a serious obstacle in the way.

  And so,he decided to try and hide it.

  He asked Mahiru for a glove,and luckily,there was one, but it was just fingerless.

  But he didn't mind the fact that the glove was fingerless at all.

  Hell,it made it look a bit cooler and it made his hand blend more around society because people prefer fingerless gloves.

  And he swore that Mahiru didn't see the flower; he didn't really point anything out at all,and that fact calmed him down.

  When he searched the topic up,he saw that the first thing that appeared on the result bar was the once-fictional-and-only-in-animes disease called the 'Hanahaki Disease'.

  He had learnt everything about it,earning him new knowledge and such.

  But the thing is,who would love a monster like him, unconditionally?

  He thought of the possibility of the victim of the Hanahaki Disease being Mahiru,but he quickly shrugged that thought off and said not one in a million years would it be his sunshine.

  There was just no way.

  But whoever that person was,he wanted to find him or her,because the flower still continued to grow until now,meaning that the victim still hasn't undergone surgical removal yet.

  And he read that the consequences and symptoms the victim suffers are really painful for a living being to withstand and bear,with roots penetrating your lungs and such.

  Even the thought of a person coughing up full-bloomed flowers seemed excruciatingly painful made Kuro gag.

  And back to the main topic that we had just discussed earlier on.

  Mahiru had been eating lesser and lesser,his eyes being blank and diminished of their usual and bright light he was fond of and so accustomed and familiar with.

  He was seriously worried for him.

  It was as if something was eating him from the inside, and he couldn't say anything about it; not even to Kuro,his own partner and Servamp.

  And over these past few months or weeks,he decided to keep watch on Mahiru and notice the changes in him more,and it paid off as he noticed that..

  Mahiru became a bit more sneakier and secretive than before.

What the hell were these changes in Mahiru?

  He sighed,and shrugged all of these thoughts that had been laying on his mind off;he still needed to remember why he was even inside the convenience store anyways.

  To buy a bunch of groceries and such.

  When he decided to pay attention to the food in front of him,he heard a loud ambulance siren wail past the store loudly,disrupting him from his thoughts.

  'Huh', he thought. 'Somebody's in trouble..'

  Then,the phone that Mahiru had bought for him to contact him and play some games if he was bored, buzzed in his pocket.

  He quirked an eyebrow,and quickly fished it out and saw that it was from the troublesome and rich brat that his youngest brother,Lily,was currently having a contract with.

  He groaned in exasperation and exhaustion of needing to deal with another troublesome guy,and answered it with his bored voice,"Yes..Hello, Bastard-Chan.."

  "SLOTH!"

  The voice from the other end of the line shouted into his ear as loud as one can anybody can imagine, and he groaned again,"Ugh..what is it..?Don't shout, it's troublesome.."

  Misono answered in a seriously panicky and hesitated voice,"Oi,S-Sloth!Is Shirota with you in an ambulance right now?!"

  Kuro suddenly turned dead serious as he picked up the mood that this was indeed important and asked with a questioning voice,"Huh? Ambulance? What are you talking about?"

  "So you're not in an ambulance with him then!" Misono quickly concluded,and Kuro huffed in response.

  'Wait,' Kuro thought as he recalled an ambulance just passing by just now. 

  'An ambulance?Why would Mahiru be in an ambulance?And one just drove by just now..'

  Kuro demanded for answers as he raised his voice a little,"Oi,what the hell do you mean?Why would Mahiru be in an ambulance?There's nothing wrong with him."

  "I don't know,okay?!I was just minding my business when my phone buzzed!I thought that it was Shirota because of the ID,but it was another person completely!"

  "What do you mean?" Kuro pressed on,feeling dread pool at the bottom of his stomach with each second passing.

  Misono sucked in a deep breath before answering him,"Look,just go to the Jutendo Hospital immediately. That was what the girl told me to do. I'll be tagging along."

  "Answer me first!Why would Mahiru be in a god damn ambulance?!" Kuro had enough of playing around and lost his cool,all out of worry of what would happen to his sunshine.

  He didn't care about the sudden stares and looks from the rest of the people,they would eventually forget about him anyways.

  Misono sighed deeply,before answering with much hesitation in his voice,"Okay,Sloth.Do not go crazy and act irrationally when I spill the beans, alright?"

  "I don't care!For god's sake,just tell me the reason why Mahiru would be in a hospital and an ambulance, damn it!" Kuro snapped in frustration at him.

  He heard Misono hesitate again on the other end of the line,before he spilled the dreaded beans to him, a subject that Kuro had been wondering of for months yet came up with no answer:

  "Sloth.If the girl that had Shirota's phone was actually telling the truth,then this is a serious matter. Shirota is dying,and is in the final stages of the 'Hanahaki Disease'."

  "Please,just arrive to the Jutendo Hospital immediately, for his sake,if the girl actually wasn't lying and pulling a prank on us."

  Kuro's eyes widened,as his whole body went still, as if he looked straight into Medusa's eyes and became petrified.

  His hand was trembling,and if not for his deathly-grip on his phone Mahiru had bought for him,he would've immediately let go of it and watch it fall to the ground.

  He gasped,as he let his hand that held his phone slump to the side,motionless,and did not even wait for Misono to finish his sentence when he heard him speak again and hanged up.

  He felt tears prickle at the corners of his eyes,and felt them stream down his cheeks like a waterfall and didn't even bother to wipe them up.

Some of his tears fell onto his coat,dampening it a little, while some of them fell to the ground, creating a minuscule puddle of tears.

  A lady noticed his distress and him crying,and quickly approached him,"Um..sir, are you alright?Do you need help..?"

  Kuro's eyes widened again as he snapped back to reality when he heard the woman's words and felt her touch onto his wrist.

  He quickly snatched his wrist from her grasp,as one word that she said replayed in his mind again and again.

  Help.

  Help.

  Help.

  Mahiru needed his help right now and he isn't by his side.

  He quickly dropped the basket that he was holding and dashed out of the convenience store,not caring if the staff complained that he needed to put the items back onto their shelves.

  They can put it back by themselves for all he cared.

  He dashed through the sea of people with his inhumane-vampiric speed as he bit his lip harshly to stop the tears from flowing even further,but to no avail, as it only earned him a bleeding lip.

  He cursed himself for his stupidity of not realising Mahiru's pain and condition he was in,and rushed to the hospital with his vampiric speed.

  "Damn it..Mahiru,you were the victim of the Hanahaki Disease the whole time..?!Why didn't you tell me?!If you did,we could've made something work out!" Kuro cursed out loud.

  But the only sentence that kept replaying in his mind the whole time was purely out of concern and worry for him as he tried to not let his tears fall even more:

  'Please,hang in there,Mahiru!'


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuro hears the news that he dreaded for so long.

-/-

A few moments ago,with Kuro.

-/-

Kuro yawned as he glanced at all of the food on the shelves boringly,with his usual uncaring face plastered on,but behind that façade,was a seriously troubled and worried Servamp.

Mahiru had been acting too weird for his liking; he always barely ate,didn't order him around that much and with his housewife personality being replaced by a really quiet one.

When he did eat,he would always not finish the food on his own plate that he cooked for the two of them, and just threw away the food that he hadn't finished.

Even if Kuro wouldn't admit this openly,he was really scared and worried for Mahiru.

He was his light,his sole reason of living in this colourless, boring and mundane world,and without him, Kuro would've continued to run away from his problems and suffer later on.

  He first thought that Mahiru was just a troublesome brat that always placed himself into trouble and tried to act like a hero to everyone,just to receive recognition.

  But he soon realised that his assumption was wrong.

  Mahiru truly wanted to help people,and not just for the recognition a hero receives.

  When he had learnt that Mahiru's parents died in a car-crash and only has an uncle to support him, but barely comes home,he thought that the boy was just a pitiful cliche character.

  He was nobody special;hell,he wondered if he ever became suicidal with how predictable the plots for stories go.

  He said that he liked to keep things simple and just help out somebody in need,when really,it would just make matters worse and more complicated than it already is.

  Kuro thought that he was superior than him because he knew how things would turn out,and thought that he was smarter than him.

  Because he chose the reasonable decision of not wanting to fight and involve himself into that troublesome mess.

  But he saw that Mahiru wanted to help people because he had already went through his own series of traumatic problems and that he didn't want the rest to experience it.

  Kuro somehow respected him for that.

To not want people to experience the bad things you have already went through,and so,you help them overcome it.

He was extremely grateful that he existed in his life, and he was the first Eve he had that treated him like an equal,and he was happy,for once.

He knew that his happiness would soon end,as human lives were short and had an expiry date,so he always tried to live in the present and tried not to think of the future that much.

But when he realised that he always tried to live in the present and started looking forward to the day after that,did he realise something:

He was not actually just looking forward to the present, like how he told himself,he was also looking forward to the future and hoping that it'll continue for forever.

And when he tried to find out why he always looked forward to the next day and wished that it would continue forever,he concluded something.

And he hated his conclusion:

He was in love with Mahiru.

Once he concluded that,he felt a heavy weight being lifted off his shoulders and a big dilemma being finally solved after these months.

But there was a problem about his conclusion,and the problem was..

That he was in love with a human with an expiry date,Mahiru.

He seriously wanted to smack and kill himself right there when he had concluded that,and what was worse, was that his demon with it's mouth and eyes stitched up,gave him a suggestion.

He had appeared right next to Kuro when he was alone in Mahiru's room,and told him these exact same words:

"You love Mahiru?That's a sin to do y'know, Kuro? And you want to continue seeing him forever? Then..how about turning him into your subclass?"

"Then,you'll be able to see him forever."

To be honest,he actually considered his demon's words, about turning Mahiru into his very first subclass so that he could see him forever.

  But once he did considered that option and suggestion given to him by his demon,he wanted to kill himself.

He didn't want to drag Mahiru down into this hellish nightmare,of being immortal and seeing your friends die faster than you.

  Nope,he didn't want to do that at all.

He wanted him to have a normal,simple and average human life,where he had a family and Kuro would just watch from afar,watching him grow up.

He did not want to taint him.

But was seeing Mahiru getting stolen away by another human girl,seeing him grow up,and making him watch from a distance,really what he wanted?

The answer was no.

He did not want that kind of future at all.

He didn't want to see Mahiru grow up and show signs of old age,he did not want to see Mahiru get stolen away from his grasp and reach,and he did not want Mahiru to forget about him.

He was selfish,and he only wanted Mahiru for himself.

But oh,he knew that that was a sin to do.

To steal Mahiru's future from him just because you loved him,and to isolate him from the human world by turning him into your subclass just like a cliche Yandere.

  To steal the light away from others and blinding them in total darkness,just for your greedy and selfish self.

But what if the brunet also had some feelings of love towards him,and reciprocated his feelings too?

No,that was a far-fetched dream that he'll never ever reach.

So,once he knew his true feelings for the brunet boy, he tried to distance himself from him,and tried to forget his own feelings.

He was running away from his problems again and not facing them head on,like how Mahiru had advised him to do.

But one day,he started to notice changes about Mahiru,like how he started to get a bit more closer and a bit more affectionate towards him,as if something clicked in him.

He thought with some hope in his eyes that Mahiru also loved him back,but he always shrugged it off, thinking for himself that this was just the troublesome's brunet personality.

But in the inside,he really hoped that he did in fact loved him back.

However,he knew that if he ever tried to become closer to the boy,he'll surely become more attached to him,to the point that he'll reconsider the suggestion of turning him into a subclass.

  He feared when that stage would come.

So that was why he continued to distance himself from the boy,to distance the shadow from it's own very light that helped it continue to live and exist.

He hated the borderline between them,and the border was his immortality versus Mahiru's mortality and expiry date.

He wished that if he was just born into another alternate universe where he was just an ordinary human being,he would become a couple with Mahiru and eventually marry him.

  He truly wanted to,but he couldn't.

  And one day,Mahiru started to talk about gibberish stuff, and asked him a sensitive question:

  "Hey,Kuro..Do you think that love between a human and an immortal vampire is possible?"

  And Kuro,who was shocked beyond belief at that sudden sensitive question,just answered him like how he usually did,even though his tone had a bit of anger in it.

  And no,it wasn't directed to Mahiru,and he was sure that Mahiru picked it up that it wasn't directed towards him,he hoped so anyways.

He was actually angry about the fact that he just denied his own feelings.

  Hell,he even had a chance to confess right there, but his morals and crap just got in the way and prevented him from doing so!

  He just spouted whatever came to his mind and the words just rolled off his tongue,word after word, and he was quite sure,that for one second,he saw Mahiru's face contort into shock.

  And pain or heartache.

  He told him that it was entirely impossible,that love between an immortal vampire and a human with an expiry date wouldn't work out,because the vampire was immortal while the human wasn't.

  He didn't even believe in the words that were rolling off his tongue.

  He didn't believe that he was actually saying these words. 

  He hated himself and hated the fact that he was denying his true feelings and himself entirely,while the demon of his kept snickering the whole entire damn time.

But still,because he was seriously foolish,he decided to keep up with the act and continue to go with what he said,along the lines of 'No,it's entirely impossible' and such.

And then,a few days or weeks after that,that was when he noticed the flower growing on his palm.

  The flower was the flower named the 'Striped Carnation', and in the flower language,its meaning is of a very harmful or harsh variety or genre.

  The meaning went along with the lines of 'No; Refusal; Sorry,I can't be with you;I wished that I could've been with you'.

  Now,do not take Kuro as a dumbass that, regardless of his lazy-ass personality,wouldn't at least try to learn anything at all over the millenniums he's lived for.

  He has a least a small library of knowledge from being immortal and the millenniums he's lived for and he could probably pass and get into Harvard, okay?

  He wasn't dumb.

  Hell,he came from some foreign and western country that wasn't Japan,so how would he have known to speak the language without a couple of years of learning it at all?

  Back in the old days Kuro was slightly familiar with, when things were calm and without any missiles and without crazy dictators that want to claim the world for himself..

  ..And the man that Kuro had just described of what definitely not Hitler..

  Yeah,back in those days without those crazy dictators, there wasn't technology around to waste your time on,and so,Kuro had to relieve his boredom by studying.

  But won't that just add on to his boredom?

  Well whatever,every person is different,okay?

  We evolve.  
   
  Or in Kuro's case as he turned his habits of studying when bored to playing games all day on his console, or Mahiru's console actually:

  We devolve.

  When he had remembered what the Striped Carnation meant in the flower language,he immediately realised that the flower suited his predicament well.

  He was currently in self-denial;he refused his own feelings of love towards Mahiru,yet he wanted to love him and have him reciprocate his feelings at the same time.

  He wished that he could be with him and love him until the very end,but he couldn't,because he was immortal.

  But the thing was,he still did not understand why the hell was a flower actually growing on his palm and if that was even theoretically possible,but it was because it was happening to him.

  And so,he decided to go back to the apartment and search it up on Google,but there was still an obstacle in the way from the search engine:

  Mahiru himself.

  He didn't want to really trouble,confuse and make him panic that a flower was growing on his palm, and that was a serious obstacle in the way.

  And so,he decided to try and hide it.

  He asked Mahiru for a glove,and luckily,there was one, but it was just fingerless.

  But he didn't mind the fact that the glove was fingerless at all.

  Hell,it made it look a bit cooler and it made his hand blend more around society because people prefer fingerless gloves.

  And he swore that Mahiru didn't see the flower; he didn't really point anything out at all,and that fact calmed him down.

  When he searched the topic up,he saw that the first thing that appeared on the result bar was the once-fictional-and-only-in-animes disease called the 'Hanahaki Disease'.

  He had learnt everything about it,earning him new knowledge and such.

  But the thing is,who would love a monster like him, unconditionally?

  He thought of the possibility of the victim of the Hanahaki Disease being Mahiru,but he quickly shrugged that thought off and said not one in a million years would it be his sunshine.

  There was just no way.

  But whoever that person was,he wanted to find him or her,because the flower still continued to grow until now,meaning that the victim still hasn't undergone surgical removal yet.

  And he read that the consequences and symptoms the victim suffers are really painful for a living being to withstand and bear,with roots penetrating your lungs and such.

  Even the thought of a person coughing up full-bloomed flowers seemed excruciatingly painful made Kuro gag.

  And back to the main topic that we had just discussed earlier on.

  Mahiru had been eating lesser and lesser,his eyes being blank and diminished of their usual and bright light he was fond of and so accustomed and familiar with.

  He was seriously worried for him.

  It was as if something was eating him from the inside, and he couldn't say anything about it; not even to Kuro,his own partner and Servamp.

  And over these past few months or weeks,he decided to keep watch on Mahiru and notice the changes in him more,and it paid off as he noticed that..

  Mahiru became a bit more sneakier and secretive than before.

What the hell were these changes in Mahiru?

  He sighed,and shrugged all of these thoughts that had been laying on his mind off;he still needed to remember why he was even inside the convenience store anyways.

  To buy a bunch of groceries and such.

  When he decided to pay attention to the food in front of him,he heard a loud ambulance siren wail past the store loudly,disrupting him from his thoughts.

  'Huh', he thought. 'Somebody's in trouble..'

  Then,the phone that Mahiru had bought for him to contact him and play some games if he was bored, buzzed in his pocket.

  He quirked an eyebrow,and quickly fished it out and saw that it was from the troublesome and rich brat that his youngest brother,Lily,was currently having a contract with.

  He groaned in exasperation and exhaustion of needing to deal with another troublesome guy,and answered it with his bored voice,"Yes..Hello, Bastard-Chan.."

  "SLOTH!"

  The voice from the other end of the line shouted into his ear as loud as one can anybody can imagine, and he groaned again,"Ugh..what is it..?Don't shout, it's troublesome.."

  Misono answered in a seriously panicky and hesitated voice,"Oi,S-Sloth!Is Shirota with you in an ambulance right now?!"

  Kuro suddenly turned dead serious as he picked up the mood that this was indeed important and asked with a questioning voice,"Huh? Ambulance? What are you talking about?"

  "So you're not in an ambulance with him then!" Misono quickly concluded,and Kuro huffed in response.

  'Wait,' Kuro thought as he recalled an ambulance just passing by just now. 

  'An ambulance?Why would Mahiru be in an ambulance?And one just drove by just now..'

  Kuro demanded for answers as he raised his voice a little,"Oi,what the hell do you mean?Why would Mahiru be in an ambulance?There's nothing wrong with him."

  "I don't know,okay?!I was just minding my business when my phone buzzed!I thought that it was Shirota because of the ID,but it was another person completely!"

  "What do you mean?" Kuro pressed on,feeling dread pool at the bottom of his stomach with each second passing.

  Misono sucked in a deep breath before answering him,"Look,just go to the Jutendo Hospital immediately. That was what the girl told me to do. I'll be tagging along."

  "Answer me first!Why would Mahiru be in a god damn ambulance?!" Kuro had enough of playing around and lost his cool,all out of worry of what would happen to his sunshine.

  He didn't care about the sudden stares and looks from the rest of the people,they would eventually forget about him anyways.

  Misono sighed deeply,before answering with much hesitation in his voice,"Okay,Sloth.Do not go crazy and act irrationally when I spill the beans, alright?"

  "I don't care!For god's sake,just tell me the reason why Mahiru would be in a hospital and an ambulance, damn it!" Kuro snapped in frustration at him.

  He heard Misono hesitate again on the other end of the line,before he spilled the dreaded beans to him, a subject that Kuro had been wondering of for months yet came up with no answer:

  "Sloth.If the girl that had Shirota's phone was actually telling the truth,then this is a serious matter. Shirota is dying,and is in the final stages of the 'Hanahaki Disease'."

  "Please,just arrive to the Jutendo Hospital immediately, for his sake,if the girl actually wasn't lying and pulling a prank on us."

  Kuro's eyes widened,as his whole body went still, as if he looked straight into Medusa's eyes and became petrified.

  His hand was trembling,and if not for his deathly-grip on his phone Mahiru had bought for him,he would've immediately let go of it and watch it fall to the ground.

  He gasped,as he let his hand that held his phone slump to the side,motionless,and did not even wait for Misono to finish his sentence when he heard him speak again and hanged up.

  He felt tears prickle at the corners of his eyes,and felt them stream down his cheeks like a waterfall and didn't even bother to wipe them up.

Some of his tears fell onto his coat,dampening it a little, while some of them fell to the ground, creating a minuscule puddle of tears.

  A lady noticed his distress and him crying,and quickly approached him,"Um..sir, are you alright?Do you need help..?"

  Kuro's eyes widened again as he snapped back to reality when he heard the woman's words and felt her touch onto his wrist.

  He quickly snatched his wrist from her grasp,as one word that she said replayed in his mind again and again.

  Help.

  Help.

  Help.

  Mahiru needed his help right now and he isn't by his side.

  He quickly dropped the basket that he was holding and dashed out of the convenience store,not caring if the staff complained that he needed to put the items back onto their shelves.

  They can put it back by themselves for all he cared.

  He dashed through the sea of people with his inhumane-vampiric speed as he bit his lip harshly to stop the tears from flowing even further,but to no avail, as it only earned him a bleeding lip.

  He cursed himself for his stupidity of not realising Mahiru's pain and condition he was in,and rushed to the hospital with his vampiric speed.

  "Damn it..Mahiru,you were the victim of the Hanahaki Disease the whole time..?!Why didn't you tell me?!If you did,we could've made something work out!" Kuro cursed out loud.

  But the only sentence that kept replaying in his mind the whole time was purely out of concern and worry for him as he tried to not let his tears fall even more:

  'Please,hang in there,Mahiru!'


	5. Chapter 4

The darkness was calm,serene and the good kind of 'overwhelming' and it engulfed Mahiru's entire vision and body; it was as if he was swimming in a pool of it and there was only silence to greet him and he greeted it back with open and happy arms.

But where was he anyways?

He then peeked his eyes open,expecting to see something, anything at all which wasn't just the empty darkness,but of course,his wish wasn't made to which he sighed in discontent.

But this peace was also really nice,so he didn't really mind it.

It was a change from the pain and suffering he always had to endure while in that hell hole, coughing up flowers and petals here and then with blood and feeling like his throat was being stabbed open with a pitch fork every time.

But he always reminded himself that it was for Kuro's happiness,because he didn't want to force the Servamp into a relationship he didn't want.

Speaking of the Servamp...where was he in this darkness?

Didn't they have a distance limit?

He tossed and turned his head around while somehow floating in the eternal darkness but couldn't see a tiny speck of light blue no matter how hard he searched for.

Ah...was he dead? 

Was this why Kuro was not with him anymore?

How cruel,he didn't even get to say goodbye...

"You are not dead yet,Shirota Mahiru," A deep yet authoritative voice boomed out in the darkness, startling his existence as he snapped his eyes open awake and looked around frantically.

As if sensing his sudden fear,the voice replaced a little of his authoritative-ness with a bit of kindness to try and calm the brunet down because it's not everyday you hear a voice come from nowhere,"You need not be afraid of us,boy."

' 'Us'?There's more?' Mahiru questioned in his mind, but it was as if his question could be heard regardless as the voice hummed a agreeable tune in response to his assumption.

"Yes,there are more," A feminine voice joined into the conversation,and Mahiru was slowly floating down to the floor.

Once his feet touched the abyss,he looked around in search of the source of the voices,but could not find a speaker or anything that might've hinted where the voices were coming from.

Instead,somebody else must've noticed him doing that,and another husky voice chuckled,"You must be searching for us.Please,do not waste your time on doing so.We are somewhat like astral projections and do not have a body to take form so you cannot see us."

'Okay,talking voices in my head in the abyss. Great, I must be going delusional.Where am I even?' The brunet asked in his mind again.

Another male yet slightly childishly voice laughed (making the number of people present four) and answered his question,"I don't see why you have to ask yourself as we can all hear you, but it is alright.I'll answer it for you."

"You're in the silver lining between life and death.You are alive yet you are not.You are the in-between,and we four Gods have summoned you here."

"Wait,Gods?" Mahiru questioned with shock,and all of them giggled at his reaction before quietening down,but they hummed in response.

Mahiru immediately knew that they weren't kidding because first off,they knew more than he did, and second,they didn't have a body,and third,they sounded much more calm than he was.

He sighed,wondering whether his life that was about to end could get any weirder,and asked,"So,um... why am I here?Is there a reason?"

"Ah,that," He could imagine the female God (goddess?) nodding to his appropriate question as she hummed a tune (did they love humming tunes? Is that a God thing?).

The childish voice came into play,"We summoned you here out of personal interest,that's all!"

The female reprimanded him with a motherly tone and beautifully lulling voice that would entrance everybody,"Now now,don't say it like that. Be a bit more mature."

"But it's boring being mature!You get responsibilities dumped on you! Moreover, you guys were the ones who agreed to my idea of summoning him when I told you he had a contract with an immortal Vampire!" The childish God pouted.

Once hearing that,Mahiru widened his eyes as words came spilling out of his mouth,"A-Are you talking about Kuro?"

When he was replied back with silence,he took it as a yes and he continued to ramble,"I-Is he alright?Oh god,I haven't even said anything to him at all.He's the type that overthinks things and blames himself. I'm horrible.What am I going to do—"

"Do not fret,human," One of the huskier voices soothed as it continued,"The vampire is alright. Actually,you should worry about yourself more.Why do you worry about him while you're on the verge of death?"

"B-Because...I..." Mahiru scrambled for the words to say,and the words wouldn't form inside of his head because why was he worrying about Kuro when he was literally on the verge of death?

But then,he realised as clear as day that the words were in front of him the whole time and he smiled for all of the voices or Gods to see.

"Because I love him."

A few beats of silence rung through the abyss as neither of the Gods spoke a single word,clearly shocked by his answer even though they didn't have a body to express their shock.

A human,loving a vampire?

How childish yet truly beautiful and hopeful.

But he meant every single word when he said it and he was dead serious about it.

"What a beautiful and artistic answer!I am completely touched by your feelings! I can feel the sincerity behind those words and it is truly touching," The Goddess praised as soft claps were heard in the room,no doubt hers.

The silence was pregnant with only the Goddess clapping,and finally,a voice spoke up,"A human loving a Vampire?That seems very... unlikely. Are you sure about what you're saying,boy?"

"Yes,I am sure that the words coming out of my mouth are mine.I have no doubt of them. I love him," Mahiru answered defiantly with confidence, making the room silent again.

The childish voice laughed with curiosity,breaking the silence,"How interesting!I have checked into his background and he tells no lies. He suffered the brunt of the Hanahaki Disease just for the Vampire's happiness."

"Why would he do that?Why shouldn't he have just confessed to the Vampire himself?" The woman asked,curious as well and talking as if he wasn't in the place that they were in too.

The boy replied,"Hm,something about the Vampire believing that love between it and a human wouldn't work out and he respected his beliefs so he didn't tell him,resulting in him accepting it as one-sided love and getting the Hanahaki Disease."

"T-That's...very noble yet sad," The others gasped,and Mahiru shook his head.

Why are they acting as if he wasn't there?

"See,it was right of me to bring him here! I told you guys his current predicament was interesting enough to catch my attention! It's not everyday you meet a human who is in love with a Vampire but is dying because of it, right?" The childish God chuckled.

That brought Mahiru's attention back to the Gods, and he asked,"C-Can I ask again,why am I here? Is there an actual reason,not just because you were curious or something?"

"I thought that we had already discussed about that—"

The God was cut off when the world started rocking back and forth,shaking Mahiru out of his footing and causing him to fall to the floor to which he desperately asked,"W-What's happening?!"

"Ah...it seems that your mortal body is waking up.I was hoping that we could talk more about your devoted love," The Goddess sighed disappointedly and he could imagine her shaking her head.

He heard the other Gods sighing disappointedly as well, before he heard the childish God speak again.

"Fortunately for us but unfortunately for you, we are very sure that we shall soon meet again. But next time,it'll surely be permanent. Please say your goodbyes to the Vampire during that time or you may not get a chance to ever again.Now,goodbye."

He wasn't even given a chance to question it before he truly snapped his eyes open again, and finally saw something else different from the abyss upon his awakening.

-/-

"Ugh...where am I?" Mahiru tossed his head around and tried to blink his eyes open,but closed them immediately after seeing the drastic change in colours and it just hurt his eyes so much after being used in the dark.

"Oh you're awake!I have to tell the other doctors!"

A voice piped up and he immediately heard somebody scrambling back up to get to the door, and he heard it open before it promptly closed again.

'Doctors?' Mahiru questioned in his mind,but then, everything snapped back to him.

That was right,he was dying from the Hanahaki Disease and he called for an ambulance because the pain was more excruciating than last time,and he apparently passed out...

God,just remembering about the pain is making it resurface...

...Okay nevermind,the pain is back,and his chest feels like it's stabbing itself and it's suddenly getting so tight and help he's coughing up blood again—

"H-Help—!" Mahiru gasped as the pain suddenly hit him again,his chest was getting tighter by the second and the roots were attacking it by the inside,and he started sputtering and coughing out blood as he shut his eyes tight,trying to shut the pain off.

He barely noticed it when doctors came rushing into his room and a nurse injected something into his arm while the other doctors tried to restrain him while a doctor put the oxygen mask over his mouth again.

Almost immediately,the pain lessened (even then it was still there,but hey,it's better than before) and he was allowed to breathe in normally(?) again.

He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it,trying to get a grasp back on reality that just attacked him and he tried to forget about the pain that he felt on a daily basis just now.

But it was kind of hard to forget because the pain was just etched into his brain that even now,he can feel the entirety of the pain if he wants to,and not just this underlying thorn in his lungs,so he's trying not to remember any of it.

He'll probably have a panic attack too if he remembers it,so he always tries to cope with it by distracting his mind.

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) works wonders,okay?

"Shirota-San!"

He was snapped back to reality when he felt somebody shake his shoulder,and he snapped his eyes open (bad idea) but instantly squinted them when the intensity of the lights hit his eyes.

He blinked thrice,trying to get a hold on the drastic change of saturation,before finally getting a normal grasp and enlarging his point of view.

He looked terribly drunk as he tried to look up to the person who was grabbing onto his arm,and saw that it was of a male worried yet slightly sad doctor who was studying him carefully.

He tried to speak but suddenly,his voice became hoarse and he coughed up blood and a few petals, to which the doctor immediately noticed and helped him to sit up straight while also adjusting the bed to provide more comfort.

He stared at the doctor for help as he made a plea,"C-Could I please have s-some water?"

"Water?Yeah,sure,water.Can someone give him some water?" The male doctor called out to which a female doctor immediately handed one to him, and he immediately gulped the liquid down when he removed his mask slightly.

And it felt heavenly.

To finally have some water going down your throat that was endlessly attacked by flower petals just now was like a dried up oasis finally being filled up with some water again.

He greedily gulped it all down and once he was finished,he handed it over back to the staring female doctor with a quiet mumble of 'Thanks' as he put his mask back on.

The female and male doctor nodded their heads at him and without a word,returned to the front of his bed to where a female nurse and two doctors (one male and one female,so I guess you could say it was a balanced bunch,except for that nurse) were previously standing at.

They went to stare at him for a couple of seconds, which was the tensest seconds that he ever lived for, before one of the doctors spoke up,"I can confirm that your name is Shirota Mahiru,correct?"

He gave a slight bob of his head as a reply because talking was too painful right now.

Then,one of the female doctors spoke with pain in her eyes,"And I assume that you know that you're in the final stages of the Hanahaki disease,and was the one who refused surgery,right?"

He gave a few seconds of pained silence,before slowly nodding his head in reply.

The doctors and one nurse looked among themselves and nodded,and the nurse spoke up,"Since you refused surgery,the roots have grown deep in your lungs...We took an X-ray,and..."

They didn't speak for awhile,but he already knew what the answer was and he was sure that the rest of the people in the room knew that he knew it too.

But nobody wanted to say it,nobody wanted to.

One of the doctors,the male one,took the painstaking initiative to break the news for him,"Shirota-San... you...I hate to tell you this,but..."

"You don't have much long to live for,and your health is deteriorating at an alarmingly quick rate.We fear that today is your last day at life.We are sorry."

The words etched themselves into his brain.

You don't have much long to live for.

Your health is deteriorating at an alarmingly quick rate.

Today is your last day.

We are sorry.

The room took on a tensed and rightfully so deathly silence as Mahiru took it all in and digested it, before bowing his head down and letting some of his tears fall,"So it's my last day,huh?"

The doctors didn't speak a word but he didn't need to hear their answer nor look up to know that all of them are nodding and staring at him with pitiful and sad glances.

He sighed sadly as he continued to let his tears fall and the doctors allowed him to have the silence that he currently needed.

So today was the day he was going to die huh? 

He died at sixteen? 

So young.

But the true question was...who was going to take care of Kuro now,now that he's going to die soon (maybe even right now!) and what was going to become of their memories or their contract?

Will he be getting a much better Eve than him?

Oh,he hoped so,he was a terrible Eve for hiding something as big as this from him; he was such a terrible and horrible Eve.

Who would he stay with and where was he going to stay at next? 

He hoped that Lily or somebody would take him into their mansion or house and not leave him on the streets,no,his heart would break if Kuro were to lie on the streets in that cat form again; Misono had thousands of rooms to spare so why not spare one for him?

Who was going to prepare breakfast,lunch and dinner for him?

Who will be his next Eve?

What of the memories and the bond he made with him?

Will he be alone again,alone again for the next thousand years,weeping and avoiding his problems even though he told him to face them head-on?

Did he even say goodbye to him?

Something in Mahiru's heart shattered as he made that realisation; he didn't even say goodbye to him or anything,he just made him go out to buy groceries.

The waterfall in his eyes increased as he wept harder and he tried to rub the tears away but it wasn't working,the damn tears and sadness were overwhelming his entire existence.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

"I-I'm so sorry," He whispered to himself as the tears overwhelmed him,and he didn't notice it at all when a female nurse came up to him to offer him tissues and a pat on the back.

He was officially the worst scumbag on Earth.

He didn't even tell him that he had this damn disease and didn't even say goodbye or anything and even lied to him about it.

"Hey...you alright?" The female doctor offered but even she knew how idiotic the question sounded to anybody's ears; he was going to die and she was asking if he was alright?

"I-I didn't even get to say goodbye," Mahiru cried, and something in all of the doctors' and everybody's hearts shattered when they heard his confession.

A tear escaped out of one of the nurses eyes as she continued to lightly pat him on the back as a form of consolation,but suddenly,petals and blood became painstakingly coughed out of Mahiru's mouth.

The doctors became alarmed as they scrambled to try and inject him with something (probably painkillers) and the nurse rushed to grab a bit more water from the water dispensing machine.

They removed his mask so that he wouldn't feel so suffocated while coughing,and they injected another tube into his arm (that he barely felt and he didn't realise the number of tubes stuck into his arms that were connected to machines) and cleared out his mask from the blood and petals.

After the painful ordeal is done,the nurse offered him the water which he accepted gratefully and gulped it all down in one go,and thanked her.

He gave her back the cup and the rest of the doctors took their positions back as the nurse went to put the oxygen mask back on his face.

The room was quiet once again.

The doctors and nurse were all staring with pained eyes in the silence (god, can they stop staring at him?It's getting unsettling) as he struggled to breathe for air.

The back of his neck suddenly became cold as if serving as a warning of something coming up.

He shrugged that thought off because hey,what's worse than this,am I right?

Through the deathly silence (which was kind of true in itself),he and the others in the room could suddenly take note of the shoutings in the hallway, as if somebody was shouting at somebody to stop running or something.

'S-Security!'

Oh man,the girl in the hallway was calling for security now,what was going on in the hallway?

Even though it was noisy outside,the painful silence and the slow beating of the heartbeat monitor seemed to overwhelm the outside noise more, and all he could focus on was the heartbeats.

Beat.

(Ferocious tapping of footsteps could be heard, footsteps that belonged to a certain man with blue hair and a blue coat or jacket with ragged tails at the bottom.)

Beat.

( 'I DON'T CARE!LET ME SEE HIM!' The man screamed as he ignored the cries of the staff employee who was trying her best to fend him off but to no avail,the man seemingly overpowering her effortlessly.)

Beat.

.

.

.

BEAT BEAT BEAT!

A sudden spike of the heartbeat could be heard, along with some gasps when the door to the hospital room was slammed right open,accompanied with some heavy panting,and Mahiru jumped out of his skin but stayed planted on the bed.

How could you not have expected him to get scared when it was all silent and then BAM! ,a door suddenly gets slammed open?

Mahiru craned his neck to see who was the guest that had arrived,and his heartbeat became alarmingly faster and his eyes widened when he took in the sight of who had barged in.

It was a man,who was currently sweating and panting his lungs out,who had dark circles around his eyes and the most striking colour of blue for his hair,hair that Mahiru was so used to.

He was wearing a blue coat that had a weird hood on that had fur that resembled a cat's ears on it,and the coat had ragged tails that turned black at the end.

He was sporting a black shirt underneath the coat that was buttoned up and white pants and black boots to top it all off.

The man was panting and struggling to breathe for air and he was evidently tired,more so with those dark circles around his eyes,but his eyes widened when they saw the state Mahiru was in,and his mouth gaped and trembled.

Mahiru's eyes watered when he took the newcomer all in.

It was Kuro.

Kuro fumbled for the words to say as all of the words he thought of died in his throat,but he did manage to get a word out through the silence.

.

.

.

"Mahiru?"

**Author's Note:**

> This is not an AU,so everything that happened in the Servamp anime and manga,happened here,and this is just a canon-divergence fanfic.
> 
> Originally from Wattpad and written by me, and cross-posted onto AO3!
> 
> Don’t worry,I own this work.
> 
> Follow TheLostSilence on Wattpad! ^^


End file.
